


How I Met Your Emissary

by terminallybored



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BDSM AU, First Meetings, Flirting, Hale Pack, M/M, There's a BDSM club but no actual BDSM, coffee shop AU, dystopian au, sterekalphaemissary, sterekweek2017, unreliable narrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 08:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12502780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminallybored/pseuds/terminallybored
Summary: The story of how Derek Hale met his Emissary (as told by possibly the most unreliable narrators ever)





	How I Met Your Emissary

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sterek Week  
> Day 1 Theme: Alpha & Emissary

It’s not the Betas aren’t grateful. Derek’s tactic of ‘leave money for pizza’ every time he’s away for the night makes him pretty much the best Alpha ever. But he and Stiles have been away at some sort retreat in the woods to learn something about balancing nature magic and the moon or… something. The point is, it’s day eight and not even Isaac can look at another slice of pizza. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Boyd asks, watching Isaac and Erica eagerly flip through one of Stiles’ cookbooks. 

“We’ll pick an easy one,” Erica says, running her finger down a list of ingredients. “Is this one even in English?”

“I think that’s a Polish one.” Isaac flips through another one and grins. “Hey, this is one he did that thing in,” he says, laying it on the counter and pointing to a recipe. “He crossed out all the bad ingredients and wrote in healthy shit. I thought his dad burned all of these.”

“Maybe he saved one. Or just got another book and re-did it after he moved in here,” Erica shrugs. There’s actually an equal chance of either. “Here, this one is for spaghetti. That’s easy, right?”

Boyd shrugs. “As long as we use canned tomato sauce, yeah. It’s easy.”

“What other kind of tomato sauce is there?” Isaac asks, and Erica gives him a look of pity before she snatches the book away. 

“Okay, so we need an onion, garlic, oregano, a pound of ground hamburger and…” Erica tilts her head, then flips the book on its side. “Are these runes?”

Boyd looks over her shoulder. Amid all the tiny, crammed in writing about using ground turkey and whole-wheat pasta, there’s a line of tiny runes written along the edge of the page. “Yeah. Stiles probably got bored while he was waiting for the water to boil or something.”

“He’s so weird.” Erica says so quite fondly because Stiles is their Emissary, whether he’s weird or not. But he’s weird. “All of them don’t write runes in their cookbooks, right?”

“Maybe.” Isaac sets a 5lb package of ground hamburger on the counter. “Maybe Emissaries are all like drummers, like how they tap a rhythm on everything because they can’t help it because they’re drummers?”

“I’m pretty sure Scott would have mentioned by now if Deaton wrote runes and spells all over his appointment sheets.” Erica rolls her eyes, wrinkling her nose. The runes make the paper smell like it's made from ancient trees. It makes her nose prickle. “It’s probably just a Stiles thing. Derek must find that annoying, finding these everywhere.”

“Nah. They’ve been through way too much shit together for him to care where Stiles doodles his new spells,” Isaac says. “You know how they met, right?”

* * *

The werewolves they let sit. The cages make them more violent. Stir crazy. Especially when they’re locked away deep in the basement tunnels where the moonlight can’t reach them. Derek hasn't seen the sky in… a long time. It wasn't until tonight that he figured out how long. 9 days, or thereabouts. The guards have been coming by to check on his more frequently for the past two days. They run their batons along the steel bars whenever they came and went. They made sure to come at all hours of the night, to throw buckets of water into the cell so that the air was cold and damp and the stone floors were colder for being wet. They've stopped bringing food. He's been cold and hungry and without sleep for at least two days if the guards are running eight hour shifts. That means it's almost his turn. And he's an Alpha, they're not going to waste him on anything less than a packed house. The full moon is getting close. 

The humans, they bring in just before. Humans have a tendency to despair when they're in a cage for too long. They get listless. They become hopeless. Their energy is best right after capture, when they still think someone is coming to save them. Show them a wolf more than a week in the cage, wet and in a miserable state, and the stupid ones will actually think they can win. Means they'll give a damn good show. 

The guard whistles sharply, like he's calling a dog, and Derek barely has time to brace himself before the bucket of freezing water is flung into his cell. Bracing himself is all he can do, really. The cell is tiny and there's nowhere to hide from it. The stink of herbs, some mix of wolfsbane and hemlock and something else sticks to his sodden clothes when they drench through.

“Hey, boy.” The guard rattles his baton against the bars, like it's a stick he means to throw. Shift 3. This one is a real asshole. Likes dog jokes. Derek will really enjoy killing him. “Hey. Guess what? I've got a surprise for you.”

Derek just looks at him with mild disdain. He needs to save his energy. And he's not going to put on a show for this inbred tank with an underbite. Not while there are steel bars between them. 

“Aww, is someone grumpy? Don't be grumpy, grumpy. I brought you a present.”

“Bring it in here and give it to me.”

“Fuckin’ mongrel.” Shift 3 has a pretty short tolerance for bullshit. Means third shift is probably the shitty overnight hours. So Shift 1 is the daytime hours. Shift 2 is night. Showtime. Shift 2 is when it'll go down. 

Shift 3 stomps off down the hallway. Derek smells the herbs when he comes back and tenses his muscles when the second bucket of cold water is thrown into the cell. “Keep being sweet, asshole. See where it gets you.” He throws the bucket aside and makes a ‘hurry up’ motion that makes another Shift 3 guard appear, hauling a human with him. “So even though you're an asshole, look what I brought you. A shiny new toy.”

When the kid gets shoved against the bars, Derek can smell blood on him. Blood and stress and anger and… something that smells a little like ozone. His eyes light up red so he can get a better look at him. Shaggy hair. Skinny. Spots on his face… freckles? Hard to say in light this dim.

“That's right, turn on those wolfy peepers.” The guard grabs the hem of the red pullover hoodie the kid is wearing and hauls it up. 

“Hey! Hands off the merchandise!” The kid tries to kick off from the bars and actually gets an arm free. He only gets in one good shot to his handler’s collarbone before Shift 3 brings his baton down on the back of his head. 

“You better not have damaged him,” the other guard warns, now struggling to keep the kid upright when he has to take all his weight. 

“Fuck off, he'll be fine. Now, wolfy. Take a good look.” He pulls the hoodie back up to show a lot of pale, bruised skin and… a tattoo on the kids right pectoral. A snarling wolf. The Argent clan but… the chain underneath the wolf is broken. The middle ring is split at the bottom. “You be nice and we’re gonna let you play with this hunter. Bet he's gotten a few of your friends already.”

If he's a hunter, that's a distinct possibility. “Can't wait.”

**~~~**

Derek assumes that they only bother with the blindfold because they expect to be bringing him back to his cell at the end of the night. Clearly their faith in their human catch is low, no matter what kind of warnings they’ve been throwing around. 

“Me and Murry, we got a bet going,” Shift 2 says, his voice behind Derek and on his right. He hasn’t bothered to learn the names of the guards. Just their shifts. It’s doubtful their names, if they’re even using their real names, would be useful. “He thinks you’re gonna go down in the third round. See, every round they survive, they get a better weapon. Trade off for the wolf stamina.”

“How magnanimous of you.”

The guard barks out a laugh. Derek can feel spittle spraying against his shoulder. “Mag-an-a-moose nothing! What kinda betting pool is there if the fuckin’ werewolf always wins?” 

“I don’t suppose that means you’re actually betting on me winning.”

The guard laughs again, harder this time. Derek stores the feeling of that spray of saliva again. Saves it up. He has a feeling he’ll need that anger soon. “Fuck no. I think the hunter’s gonna do his job in two rounds, max.”

When the blindfold is removed, Derek has to squint at the hard lights beating down into the arena, lighting the steel cage like an airport runway. The lights glint only faintly off the rust-tinged steel girders that make the skeleton of the cage. The thinner grating between the girders looks promising, but the pile of heavy cables with clamps on the ends doesn’t. Workers are already hauling them to thick fuse boxes buried against the back walls of the arena, shoving patrons aside as they do. The crowd and the workers holler obscenities at each other until girls in tight tanktops and high heels sashay into the mess and holding large ledgers over their heads.

So. Electrified cage. Rowdy crowd, looks like the mid-level of illegally rich, with more money than taste or good sense. Last call for bets is going around. One round, maybe two, before the human kid gets a crossbow or a gun, probably with something nasty lacing the bullets. But he can’t get that tattoo out of his head. The chain was broken. It was broken…

The guards don’t remove the cuffs until they’ve shoved him into the cave and locked the door. He barely hears the clink of the cuffs clearing the small opening built for just that purpose when the low, nasty hum of an electric current fills his ears. The floodlights go out. Blue sparks pop in the dark where the clamps grab onto the cage. Derek takes one step away from the cage and his eyes glow red in the dark. It makes the crowd lose their collective mind, stamping and screaming. 

Derek ignores it, scans the cage. The kid is on the opposite side from him, crouched down and feeling in the dark. The weapon they gave him is a few feet away. Baseball bat. He must be a damn good hunter if anyone thinks he’ll survive a round with just that. 

_“Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight, the fight you’ve all been waiting for!”_

Derek ignores the announcer’s voice that booms from heavy speakers all around them, words hard to discern when he screams at the microphone. He moves across the cage and stops halfway across. Looks down. A line across the cage, dividing it.

“It’s mountain ash,” the kid says, coming to stand just across the line from him. Just out of arm’s reach. His voice and the scrape of the metal bat he’s dragging across the floor are lost in the din of the frantic announcer, to all ears but Derek’s.

“I know.”

“They’re going to break the line when the lights come up.”

“I expected. Your tattoo. You’re not a hunter.”

The kid, who isn’t a hunter, blinks those huge eyes in the dark, like he’s surprised. “And here I thought I’d have to be the one pleading my case.”

“So what are you?” Derek inhales. It’s hard to tell because of the electricity and the ash and the stink of hundreds of bodies without a ton of regard for hygiene, but there’s that smell again. Raw. Like ozone. 

_“…-hundred pounds of Alpha savagery!”_ the announcer yells, and with a heavy ' **chunk** ,’ Derek is bathed in a spotlight that makes him squint. The kid can see his face clearly now, the look of recognition, and he looks kind of… bashful?

“Look, I’m new, okay? I just don’t have all my tattoos yet.”

Derek forces his face to stay neutral in the spotlight. “You’re good?”

“I’m good.”

_“And at 127 pounds, light but nimble so don’t count him out yet, folks, we have a hunter from the Argent clan!”_ **Chunk.** A second spotlight bears down on the door where the kid was shoved into the cage. It skims around the cage until it finds him, the two pools of light merging together in the middle of the cage. _“Well well! Looks like these two are ready to square off already! Not too quick now. We want to give these folks their money’s worth!”_

Two industrial fans drown out the announcer as the lights come back up. The crowd laughs and whistles as the girls running the fans let their skirts get caught in the updraft, and they scream as the mountain ash whirls around the cage and then vanishes. 

**Chunk. Chunk. Chunk.**

All around the arena, the heavy bars release, and the metal shutters slide apart and the light of the full moon floods in. Derek feels the shift that rips free of him so hard that it leaves him breathless. The audience stamps their feet, yelling for blood from both sides already. 

“You better be damn good, kid” Derek warns, flexing his claws as the raw power of his wolf pushes from inside his chest.

“Stiles.” The kid hefts the bat over his shoulder and licks his lips, blue sparks gathering at his fingers and calling to its cousins running in raw volts through the metal cage around them. “Don’t worry. I’m damn good.”

* * *

  
“There were no survivors,” Isaac says grimly.

“So you’re saying Derek and Stiles killed hundreds of people?” Erica frowns, waving away a cloud of steam from the massive skillet of hamburger. There’s still a big chunk sitting raw on the counter top. “Like, even the crew and the girls taking bets?”

“That’d be messed up. An underground fighting arena probably coerced a lot of people into working for them,” Boyd agrees, digging through a drawer. 

“Okay, they probably let them live. They just killed the guards and then left.” Isaac grabs the cans of tomato sauce and pops his claws out, gouging into the metal lid.

“We have a can opener.” Boyd holds it up from the drawer, giving Isaac that unimpressed look. “And your story sounds like bullshit.”

“Like you have a better idea.”

Boyd opens his mouth, but Erica gets there first because of course she does. No one loves having the first word like Erica. “Duh. Obviously they met in New York, where the club scene is freaky.”

* * *

What consenting adults do with each other in the privacy of their bedrooms or the back rooms of an underground sex club isn’t Derek’s business. He’s just the guy at the door, he’s not here to judge. He’s here to make sure all the parties that walk into said underground sex club are, in fact, adults. It’s good work for anyone who has trouble sleeping normal hours and doesn’t mind a lot of confrontation. He also doubles as security, so a propensity for violence doesn’t hurt either.

Okay, so maybe it’s a job he’s more uniquely suited for than most. The point is, it pays good and it allows him to occasionally punch someone and it’s actually a good thing that he’s fairly rude to people.

It’s some sort of a BDSM-themed night, which means the unloading process took twice as long and involved the sound of way more power tools than Derek is used to with this gig. He had to spend the first two hours of the event telling people to be patient and stay in line or fuck off, all with the whine and ratchet of a power drill going on in the short, unassuming building behind him. There are a lot of unassuming buildings in this neighborhood, and Derek doesn’t really care if the leather-clad crowd lined up down the block chooses to go get their rocks off in one of the other ones. 

He’s just the guy at the door. 

When they finally get the all clear from the guys inside, Derek can get to work checking IDs. It’s a pretty simple affair tonight. This particular theme doesn’t really draw out the underaged crowd, and the cover charge is way too steep for most of them to really bother with even trying to get past him. It’s an hour after the activities start before he even gets a suspicious one.

“So how old are you really?” Derek looks over the edge of the ID. The kid is 26 if Derek is the fucking pope. “I feel like I should be asking if you've finished your science homework.”

“I’m 26,” the kid says, bristling. “It’s the hair. I used to have a buzz cut. But that made me look even younger. So now I’m growing it out, but it’s still in that awkward in-between phase where I get carded everywhere.”

“Sure. Date of birth? Home address?”

“Dude, you want me to tell you my address in front of a bunch of people?” The kid looks scandalized and Derek wants to smile (but he doesn’t because he’s a professional) because he’s got a point. It’s not the most savory crowd.

“Don’t call me dude. Lean in and whisper it to me if you’re so worried.” The forgery is good. It’s solid. But the kid picked a weird name that sticks out and even just sounds fake. Rookie mistake. He holds the license against his chest to make sure he can’t cheat. The kid, Stiles if the license is to be believed (doubtful), licks his lips and leans in. 

Derek doesn’t… remember what he says when he whispers in his ear. He just… he knows the kid is being honest. He’s definitely 26. This is his real license. He knows it deep in his bones, like he knows the smell of home and the sound of his car’s engine. He can trust this information. 

He shakes his head a little. It feels like someone tickled the inside of his skull.

“Can I ask you something?” Stiles asks, tucking his license back into his wallet. Derek blinks a few times, trying to remember handing the license back. 

“Uh… sure.”

“Is it uh… is it scary in there? Like… dungeon-porn scary?”

Derek gives him a look, his senses rushing back to him as the alarm bells begin going off. “Why are you going in there if you think a porn dungeon is scary?”

“I mean, it’s not… scary in a bad way.” The kid flails his arms a little, gesturing at the plain, white door at Derek’s back. “But like… is there blood or anything?”

“No.” Derek can at least say that with authority. “Blood breaks all kinds of sanitation rules. Are you… is someone waiting for you inside?” Derek isn’t a complete and total dick, he does have some capacity for concern. And someone showing up alone for BDSM night with that painful ‘fresh meat’ look about him… that’s cause for concern. 

“No. But it’s okay, I like trying new things.” Stiles looks at himself, his white t-shirt and skinny jeans, his red plaid shirt… then behind him at the array of leather straps wrapped around copious amounts of bare skin. “Uh… I think I underdressed. Or over dressed. Whichever. Can I borrow your jacket?”

“Sure.” Derek pulls off his leather jacket and hands it over, with no clear idea why. He actually likes that jacket. It swallows the kid up when he puts it on, and the lack of studs doesn’t really make him look any more like he belongs here. 

“How do I look?”

“Like you should turn around and go home.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and sighs, fixing the collar of the jacket. “So I can go in now?”

It’s phrased like a question, but Derek steps aside from the door like it’s a command. “Next,” he says, motioning the next couple forward as his brain goes on auto pilot, the strange kid all but vanishing from his memory. It’s Derek’s job to remember the weird ones. It nags at him a little that something strange definitely happened, but… it feels like trying to remember something from weeks ago. And it feels really important to check these IDs and let people into the club.

It’s not even a full hour before something explodes inside.

It’s a small explosion, and there’t not even an outward sign of it like damage to the building or smoke. But it still comes with the sound of hardware clattering against the cement floors and a lot of screaming. Derek turns and hurries into the club to see what the hell happened. 

Even though it’s a dim maze of short corridors just inside the door (meant to easily direct people to the right place based on their preferences), Derek’s nose tells him exactly where to go. He follows the smell of burnt metal and sour panic sweat into one of the rooms with chains on the walls and rafters. Derek isn’t surprised that the room got vacated by everyone with free movement, while the poor saps who were chained up got left. No heroes in a seedy sex club, to be sure. 

And then there’s the kid. He’s still got his hands chained over his hair by a length of chain that loops over a rafter that has a nasty looking crack in it now. There's swirling patterns on his pale upper arms, and something more geometric on his back. It’s hard to tell exactly what because of the golden light pouring out of them. 

“You messed with my head,” Derek growls, the tickling feeling inside his skull dissipating. Every warning sign that this little shit threw a magical blanket over is now emerging and pointing metaphorical fingers at him.

“Just a little,” Stiles says, craning to try to look over his shoulder as Derek pries open the cuffs and leather straps still holding patrons in place. Only the one girl who’s completely topless even pauses long enough to grab something from the floor to cover herself. The cracked beam is groaning above them, and the rest of them just run out in whatever state of undress they’re in. “I mean, you wouldn’t have let me in otherwise.”

“Of course I wouldn’t. You’re not even close to 26, are you?”

“Oh my god, is that really the most important thing here?” Stiles groans, looking at his wrists. “Look, can you just uncuff me? My arms are hella tired and I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t let any weight sag on that beam right now.”

“You think?” Derek looks up at the beam, judging its condition. They have a couple of minutes. No rush. He swats Stiles across the back of his head instead. “You went right in for whipping? Seriously? Do you have no concept of starting slow?”

“Ow. I thought this was slow! I thought the heavy stuff was like… hot wax and nipple clamps. And car batteries. Is that a sex thing or just a straight-up torture thing? I watch porn and a lot of movies, i might be getting my wires crossed.”

“Shut up. Where’s your handler?”

“My what?” Stiles asks, blinking and cocking his head. Derek growls and steps around in front of him, grabbing his jaw and forcing Stiles to look at him as his eyes burn red.

“You could have brought down a building on top of innocent people, Emissary. Tell me where your handler is.”

Stiles stares at him, every inch a deer caught in the headlights. He opens his mouth, but it still takes him a few seconds to find words again. “You’re an Alpha.”

“Answer me.” Whoever is training this idiot needs a serious ass-kicking. The beam overhead groans again, and the crack splinters up higher.

“He’s not here!” Stiles says quickly, and Derek can hear his heart rate spiking. Which means he's probably telling the truth. “I’m on vacation, I live in California! I came here on my own, no one even knows I came!”

“And you came to a sex club… why?” Derek just crosses his arms when Stiles gapes at him and presses his lips together. “Unless you have an unlocking spell in your bag of tricks, you’re going to have to answer me.” 

There’s another ugly cracking noise above them and Stiles turns pink to his ears. “I… I’ve been having issues with harnessing energy, okay? Like… except in the shower. I can harness so much energy in there that the tiles on the wall look like something out of Fight Club.” Stiles plunges ahead, words coming more rapidly, and Derek isn’t sure if it’s because he’s worried about being crushed or because he doesn’t want some strange werewolf asking about his masterbatory habits (which is fair, to be honest). “So I did some reading and I mean, there’s not a lot on sex magic in the books I’ve got, but it’s definitely a thing and even in New York there’s not really a tantric resort or something and that all sounds really complicated anyway so I thought okay, just find something pretty close!” 

“And ‘close’ to you meant a cheap, fly-by-night sex dungeon?”

Stiles sighs. “See, it sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

“Because it _is_ stupid. Where’s my jacket?”

Stiles nods vaguely at the floor. “I think it’s over there.”

Derek picks up his own scent and snatches the jacket up, brushing it off as best he can. “Can’t believe you made me give you my jacket and then threw it on the floor. Asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles groans. “Come on, can you get these off of me? This was all a dumb idea and I’ll never do it again, okay?”

Derek pulls on his jacket and grabs the chains over Stiles’ head, prying one of the cuffs open, then the other. Stiles drops his arms, sighing gratefully as he rotates a shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

“Out. Before the building comes down.”

* * *

“And that's how they met. And how Stiles learned control,” Erica says, examining the dial on the stove. “Because obviously then they boned and Stiles got better at harnessing his magic. Which one is ‘simmer?’”

“That sounds even worse than mine.” Isaac looks at the dial over Erica’s shoulder, then just turns it to the highest setting. “I’m hungry, just pick whatever makes it cook fast.”

“That totally does not sound worse. Yours was stupid. Right Boyd?” Erica asks when Boyd wisely puts a lid over the pot of sauce.

“Yep.”

“Please. You’re just agreeing because it’s Erica.” Isaac crosses his arms. This is the shit that came from inter-pack dating in a small pack. “You really think they met in a sex dungeon?”

“Sounds better than an illegal cage fighting operation.” 

Isaac scoffs and dump a box of dry spaghetti into the pot of boiling water. It doesn’t look like much food, so he grabs another box and rips it open with his claws. “That’s not agreement, that’s you covering your own ass. So how do you think they met then?”

Boyd just shrugs again. “Probably how normal people meet.”

* * *

“Black, five sugars.” Derek doesn’t actually look up at the barista as he’s scrolling through the mile-long email on his phone. He hates this thing and the tiny screen. Not enough to upgrade to a bigger phone, like his phone company keeps begging him to do. Derek can work a phone just fine, thanks, but trying to get everything out of one phone and into another is well beyond his level of patience. Maybe if people could just remember that ‘everyone has a cell phone’ (like Laura used to tell him when he would point out they were always in close proximity and he didn’t need a phone to call her) and not send massive emails, that would solve an awful lot. 

“Yeah, I know.” It’s the barista laughing that actually gets Derek to look up, brow furrowed. The kid with all the spots and the big eyes waves the cup at him. “You’ve ordered twice, dude. Bitter and sweet, I’ve got it. I need a name for the order.”

“Oh. Derek.”

“Got it. Whatcha frowning at on there?” the kid asks, which Derek supposes is the price he pays for visiting the coffee shop late in the morning on a weekday when all the normal people are at work. No one behind him in line= he gets the barista’s full attention.

“I’m just reading an email,” Derek says, going right back to it in hopes that the kid will leave him alone. 

“Not getting bad news, are you?”

Derek sighs and shuts his eyes. “I’m trying to concentrate.” He steps away from the counter, ignoring the kid’s babbled apologies to take refuge by the milk bar so he can finish this damn thing. If he had any patience to begin with, dealing with realtors and state officials definitely zapped it away. 

He finishes the email, sorts through the double speak and the legal jargon of it enough to glean that the county wants to tear his old house down and turn it into some sort of housing development. Which isn’t new- Laura used to get this email about once a year. It was still infuriating. Just because the land wasn’t occupied didn’t mean it was for sale. And who the hell put a housing development right next to a wildlife preserve? It was going to strain or kill every ecosystem living there. 

Derek starts and deletes two replies that involve way too much of the word ‘fuck’ when something flies at him from his periphery. Derek jerks his head up and snatches it from the air automatically. It’s more delicate than a worthwhile projectile ought to be, and crushes easily in his palm. Derek blinks and opens his hand, looking down at the small, plastic creamer packet, now just mangled plastic and cream that smells like pumpkin pie. At the counter, the kid with the spots and the big eyes is staring at him, bug-eyed and stuck in place, still poised from lobbing the creamer. There’s a cup on the counter. It has his name on it. 

“Uh… sorry, dude,” he says, holding out a napkin. “I couldn’t get your attention and I didn’t want your coffee to get cold.” 

Derek snatches the napkin and wipes the sickly sweet-smelling cream from his hand. “Throwing something at me was a way better idea,” he growls, grabbing his cup and walking out, making a mental note not to come back to this one. Their employees were weird. 

Halfway through his cup (which is admittedly good), Derek gets his temper under control and thinks more clearly. He digs around in the files that Laura was careful to keep in good order, meaning they were important. He finds the number for their accountant and makes sure that the taxes on the land are in good order. Then he finds the number for their lawyer and dumps the issue on him instead.  


**~~~**

The problem is that the coffee shop is really, really convenient. And they have really good coffee. Derek blames those hipster coffee shops in New York for getting him hooked on 100% Arabica beans. Now he taste the bitter tang of filler beans just from smelling the air while it’s brewing. So maybe Derek is a tiny bit a coffee snob. It takes him all of two days before he’s back at the coffee shop with his laptop and a few local papers. If he’s going to stay in this damn town again, he might as well catch up on what’s happened since he left.

“Black. F-”

“Five sugars, I remember,” the barista says, grinning at him. Spots. Great.

“So is this always your shift or something?” Derek sighs. 

The barista laughs. “Wow, you're charming today,” he says, pulling a cup from the stack and grabbing a marker. “What’s with all the stuff?”

“Research.”

“Yeah? Are you a writer?” he asks, not looking up from his scribbling. “Or a student at the community college?”

“I just like to know things. Don’t throw creamer at me again,” Derek warns, and he doesn’t know why he says that. ‘I just like to know things’ is a sentence that ends a conversation. Why the hell did he go and say something else that invites the kid to talk to him even more.

For his part, the barista looks up and makes a face at him. “Then pay attention or next time I’ll use the microphone to call for ‘Derek who scowls at his phone like it stood him up at the prom.’”

“Good luck fitting that on a cup.” Derek moves aside and pays for his order when a harried-looking young woman in a pencil skirt comes in with a long list of coffee orders. He goes to find somewhere to sit down. It’s the girl behind the register who wanders out a few minutes later calling for ‘Derek? Is there a Derek?’ He accepts his cup without a word and she scurries back behind the counter.

The cup is mostly empty and Derek is deeply ensconced in the political movements from the last few years made by families he knows as allies to hunters. The nearby pack under Satomi has been making almost identical moves, so that’s good to know. It’s been a well-spent few hours and the drink is tepid now, so it’s just by sheer habit that he walks out with the cup instead of throwing it away. He doesn’t notice the writing until he’s setting it in his cup holder in the car. 

‘Derek who likes to know things.’

**~~~**

“Coffee. Black, five sugars, and don’t fucking be cute today,” Derek snarls. He has to keep his sunglasses on in case his eyes are flashing red. 

“You think I’m cute?” The barista has already been writing on the cup since he walked in the door. Maybe he can’t help himself when it comes to being a smartass but today is not the day for it. 

“Not today,” Derek repeats, fist clenching around the wadded up $5 bill in his hand. The barista follows the crinkling sound down to the counter. 

“Man. Glad I’m not on register.” He goes back to writing on Derek’s cup. “So what has you in such a mood?”

“Every cop in this town has it out for anything that isn’t a Honda Accord.”

The barista winces in sympathy. “Speeding ticket?”

“For three miles over the limit.” Again, why this became a conversation instead of a simple ‘shut up and make my coffee,’ Derek doesn't know. 

“School zone?” The kid puts his hands up when Derek tightens his jaw, fingertips stained from the marker. “Okay, okay. Sorry. I have an inquisitive soul.”

Derek cuts the banter short and goes home to sulk in peace where he can maybe claw a few innocent pieces of furniture and get his rage back under control. He really shouldn’t lose it so easily over a speeding ticket. Cops are always dicks, especially if a guy drives a sports car. 

Derek doesn’t know why he answers a phone number he doesn’t know, just a few hours into a perfectly good fuming session, but he does. 

“What?”

“Is this Derek Hale?” a female voice on the other end asks, prim and official. 

“Yeah.” 

“I’m calling from the sheriff’s station to let you know that speeding ticket 0082236 has been rendered null. We discovered a problem with Officer Hughes’ radar gun reading too high.”

Derek blinks. Well that’s… lucky. He’s never that lucky. “You’re cancelling my speeding ticket.”

“You’ll get a copy of the rescinded ticket in the mail in 3-5 business days.” She gives him some other information about how to cancel any safety courses he might have enrolled in to keep the ticket off of his driving record, then hangs up. 

And Derek just sits there, trying to let that settle. Since when is he lucky? Since when it someone else in the wrong? 

…since when does he do something responsible like call an accountant?

**~~~**

Derek goes back to the coffee shop that night because luck is still on his side right now. Sure enough, the inside it still lit, but empty. The chairs have all been flipped up onto the tables and the yellow ‘Wet Floor’ signs are still sitting open just inside each door. And the barista with all the spots is the one mopping up, well after he should have gone home, surely, with a late morning shift.

Oh, he’s good.

Derek shoves the door open (lucky thing it’s not locked) and puts himself right in the barista’s space right as he’s barely turned around.

“We’re cl-Jesus!” he startles, turning to find a whole lot of red-eyed werewolf in his space. “What the hell, Derek?”

“You knew.” Derek catches his wrist and gets a look at his arm now that his sleeves are pushed up to the elbow. “Okay to show the tattoos after hours, Emissary?” 

“Stiles.” The Emissary pulls his arm away, the geometric black shapes of the moon turning phases stark under the overhead light, crawling up the kid’s arm and vanishing under his sleeve right before the full moon.”How’d you catch me?”

Derek holds up a stack of coffee cups, flipping them upside down. The runes pack in just inside the rim on the bottom of the cup, archaic symbols of magic in fat, black marker strokes. 

“Clarity,” he says of the cup with just ‘Derek’ written on it. He pulls the cup off and slips it to the bottom of the stack. “Focus,” he says, for ‘Derek who likes to know things.’ He flips to the last cup, labeled ‘Derek who obeys the speed limit.’ More runes on the bottom of the cup. “And good luck.”

“Good luck with a justice caveat,” the barista, Stiles, says, tapping one of the runes indignantly. “If you didn’t deserve the good luck, you wouldn’t have gotten it. Geeze, I’m not that careless.”

“Why have you been putting spells on my coffee?”

“Because… this is Hale territory,” Stiles says, shrugging helplessly. “No one ever thought you’d come back. I figured if things went a little easier, maybe you’d stay.”

It's the most saccharine thing Derek has heard in a while, but the kid doesn’t smell like a lie. He smells like coffee and fatigue and the sugary smell of magic.  
“Come on,” he relents “Since it was your good luck spell for me that got you stuck working a double, I… probably owe you dinner.”

* * *

“That’s… really weirdly cute, coming from you,” Isaac says around a mouthful of noodles and meat sauce. This doesn’t taste one goddamn thing like Stiles’ but it does taste edible so… good enough. 

“Yeah,” Erica agrees, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “I mean, it’s sweet but… what makes you think Derek goes to coffee shops?”

Boyd shrugs. “I saw him walk by a Starbucks once. Seemed plausible.”

“I don’t think anyone would ever trust Stiles to handle scalding hot liquid all day,” Isaac says after silence that goes a few seconds too long, shoving another bite into his mouth. “There. I’m the mean one who said it.”

“Gross,” Erica says, turning her head away. “I still think mine is more likely.”

“Stiles getting to New York and running into Derek at a sex club isn’t more likely than anything ever,” Isaac snorts. 

“Derek and Stiles busting out of an illegal cage fighting circuit isn’t exactly the stuff of high realism,” Boyd says, ever Erica’s loyal defender.

“You know what? We’ll just settle this right now.” Isaac pulls out his phone.

“Who are you calling?” Erica asks. Derek and Stiles will be well outside of the range of a cell tower for another day or so at least.

“Jackson,” Isaac says, like that should be obvious. “He knew them before we did.”

“Dude, it’s past 1 in the morning in London.” Isaac just shrugs, ignoring Boyd and switching the phone to speaker.

“Jackson,” he says as soon as the line picks up, giving the others an ‘I told you so’ look. “You’re on speaker, so don’t say anything rude about Erica or Boyd.”

“What the fuck do you idiots want?” Jackson asks, voice rough from sleep and a bit garbled from the long distance connection. 

“How did Derek and Stiles meet?”

“You called me for this?”

Erica snatches the phone. “Just tell us how Stiles became Derek's Emissary.”

“Fucked his way to the top?” Jackson offers, only sounding mildly amused when Erica growls at him. “Fine, whatever. There was nothing magical about it. Stiles got the job by default.”

The Betas look at each other.

“Default?” Boyd asks. 

“Yeah, like… no other options?” Jackson says, using that Jackson tone of condescension that said ‘you’re getting a dictionary for Christmas.’ “Stiles had a few good runs with mountain ash, but that was it. For proper Emissary material, there was Deaton and there was Morrell. And those two are shady as fuck. So Derek, in his paranoid wisdom, just got Stiles some training since he was already nailing him.”

With all the magic thoroughly ruined, Jackson promptly hangs up on them.


End file.
